Mark Carney, then a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, speaks to supporters at a watch party for Team Canada during the 4 Nations Face-Off hockey tournament in Ottawa last February.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Every Canadian has their own crystalline moment in our long-running, one-sided rivalry with the United States. The one that sums up where we stand in comparison to our worst friend and best enemy.
For me, it’s the lavish press conference room inside Manchester’s Old Trafford in August of 2012. Canada’s women’s soccer team had just been jobbed out of a chance for Olympic gold by an unhinged refereeing performance.
The U.S. had been huge favourites. Surely, this was a time for cross-border empathy.
The American team’s coach, Pia Sundhage, came out to talk first. After the usual volley of technical questions, someone wondered if she felt sorry for Canada.
Sundhage got a look of incredulity, laughed – genuinely laughed – and said, “No.” She said it wasn’t the stupidest thing she’d ever heard, but that it was close.
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What would Canada have done? Felt sorry for them. Said it before anyone had asked. No doubt.
In that small moment, you could see where we stand to them. Not where we think we do, which was never anywhere near as close as we wanted, but where we actually exist in their world view. Nowhere, that’s where. At best, we were that peripheral friend who couldn’t take a hint, and kept calling.
When that same women’s team beat the U.S. at the same stage of the Olympics nine years later, it wasn’t big news down south. It was proof that a formerly great team’s moment had passed. Canada? At the Summer Olympics? The American players couldn’t rouse themselves to anger. It didn’t matter enough.
That flavour has typified our national rivalry for its duration – how it turns out matters immensely to most Canadians, and not at all to the vast majority of Americans.
This is what happens when two nations both afflicted with goodguyitis fall into occasional discord.
In Canada’s eyes, Canada is always the good guy – the underdog who punches above her weight, who plays the right way for the right reasons. If we act out, it’s only because we want so badly to make good. Even our villains are heroes, because they’re Canadian.
America has the same issue squared. There’s never been a nasty, front-running, self-involved American athlete, especially at the Olympics. If there has, they were misunderstood. ESPN will sort that out 10 years later with a three-part documentary about their crummy parents.
That’s what this rivalry is – two good guys in perpetual, low-grade conflict, neither willing to say a really bad word about the other, often speaking past each other, only one of whom takes the other seriously.
This is the brief outline of a movie no one wants to watch.
That’s changed this past week. America doesn’t want to be the good guy any more. I’m sure everyone who voted the other way still thinks they are, and feels bad in a vague way for the rest of the world, while still feeling much worse for themselves.
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But at least half that country is turning so hard into their heel era that it’s a wonder they haven’t grown light-headed. If Ivan Drago emerged today, all remorseless and “I must break you,” he’d be from Wyoming.
At the same time, Canada’s good-guy delusion is starting to wobble. We could afford to be the righteous twerp in every international argument when we had America standing behind us. Now that we’re out here on our own, it’s time to develop a little unprincipled cunning.
Prime Minister Mark Carney showed some of that during his speech in Davos. What else would you call it but throwing a punch before the other guy knows he’s in a fight? The good news – he caught America looking the wrong way. He hurt them, clearly. It felt good, didn’t it? Let’s carry a little of that spirit into the Olympics.
For the sake of national momentum, Canada has to win in Milan. It’d be great if that was in curling and short-track speed skating, but it’s hockey that matters.
For a very short window, we have America’s attention. One half wants us put in our place. The other half is leaning into masochism. Both are useful to us.
Read and watch Mark Carney's Davos speech at the World Economic Forum
The other rivals in this international friend-group fissure either don’t have the team (Britain, France, et al) or don’t feature in the glamour sport (Norway, Denmark, et al). Russia’s not there. China’s a non-factor in hockey. It’s just us and them (and Sweden).
We have one out-of-the-box advantage – Carney.
You don’t have to love the guy’s politics to see that he has become our primary national asset in our international struggle. He’s neither Justin Trudeau nor Donald Trump. He’s somewhere in that hard-to-find middle that we’ve been missing. There’s your flag bearer. Not literally, because I think he should be pushed out there much more than an actual flag holder. Hockey game? Carney. Cross-country skiing? Oh there’s Carney. Espresso at the Duomo? Carney again, speaking Italian almost as badly as he speaks French, but at least he’s trying.
Will Trump go to the Olympics? He hasn’t before. Why go now? The Italians do a lot of things well, and jeering is one of their favourites.
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Carney could go into Milan with a retainer walking behind him holding a laurel crown over his head. I wouldn’t recommend it, but he could.
This advantage – the appearance that Canada is together in this, and that the other side isn’t – should be pressed relentlessly. It demoralizes the other side.
Previous Canada would not do something like this, as it would embarrass America and mean that they might not come to our birthday party (though they never have before). Current Canada should be over that. We’re going to Milan to kick American ass and chew bubble gum, and guess what? Bubble gum is not easy to find in Italy.
I started this column with the intention of comparing this moment to others in the Canada-U.S. rivalry. I couldn’t get myself there, because there hasn’t been much rivalry to speak of, and what there has been does not show us in the greatest light.
There’s a rivalry now. It’s bigger than sports. So for the first time, sports matters. And this time, they’ll see us coming a long way off.